Decades of bilateral fossil study unearths discoveries

Paleontologists from China and Brazil inspect a pterosaur fossil site in Hami, Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region, in 2017. Since 1997, Wang Xiaolin and his team from the Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences have discovered numerous pterosaur fossils in the western part of Liaoning province, dating back around 125 to 120 million years ago within the Jehol Biota period. Chinese and Brazilian scientists have identified 17 species of pterosaur fossils, publishing numerous academic papers on pterosaurs and dinosaurs in top international journals like Nature, Science, and Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Last year, based on research on pterosaur fossils from the Jehol Biota in western Liaoning, Chinese and Brazilian scientists jointly established a new genus and species within the Chaoyangopteridae family, naming it Amizade Beauty Dragon, or Meilifeilong Youhao in Chinese, symbolizing the 20-year-long friendly cooperation between scientists from both countries in the field of pterosaur and other paleontological research. Due to the outstanding contributions made by the two Chinese scientists to pterosaur research in Brazil, Wang and Zhou were elected Corresponding Members of the Brazilian Academy of Sciences in 2013 and 2015, respectively.